"This counts as a big milestone for me… I think?" I mutter to myself, eyes focused on the sight in front of me.
A boulder, or more correctly - two boulders are there, both once part of the same piece of rock. I can see without a problem how the two would fit into each other, owing to the uneven surface on the side of each boulder, one the mirror of the other akin to two puzzle pieces.
I did not expect for this to happen, honestly. I was quite shocked when I heard a sound not too dissimilar to glass breaking coming from my 'target dummy', one which I've used for the last three or so months. When I went to inspect more closely what had caused the weird sound I noticed a large crack running perfectly down its middle.
It didn't take much for gravity to separate the two pieces, giving me quite the fright...
"..."
Well, a couple of months of pure destructive hammering with water guns does tend to weaken the internal structure of the things hit.
I turn to face the pond I'm standing next to, one surrounded by trees and lacking any people or pokemon, except for myself. One of the primary sources of aquatic aura I've used for my training.
These exercises I developed, they've turned out to be way better than I ever could have imagined, for different reasons than I theorized too. When I started out with the odd 'Xianxia' exercises the only thing I expected of them was to increase the raw amount of 'aquatic aura' that I had in store. I didn't expect them to increase it by much, maybe around ten or twenty percent. God knows, that increase may seem small but it is a massive boost to strength in the hands of those who know how to use it. If you're fighting an opponent which is your equal, that is more than enough to give you the edge over him and deliver to you that victory.
And truly, it did increase my reserves. By about fifty percent too, much more than expected. A great enough boost on its own, enough to actually give me the ability to fight Grass types without any physical moves.
It didn't only increase my capacity however. It also increased my ability to compress the aura, and not by just a little bit. The pressure I can create right now is many times larger than the pressure I was capable of generating when I started doing those exercises. And that is big.
If I was to describe how big it actually is in one sentence… Well, It feels like I'm using actual cheat codes... In real life.
The gains have unbelievable, three months of training nonstop whenever and wherever possible have made me nearly unstoppable.
The best part, even though the 'raw capacity' has increased by around fifty percent, in practice the increase is around five-hundred percent.
The reason for that is very simple. A water gun's power directly correlates to the pressure you can manage to exert on the aura inside your body. Firing a water gun is like poking a hole into a highly pressurized gas tank, the higher the pressure, the higher the velocity of the gas released. In this case, the higher the velocity of the water gun.
What?! I can fire a water gun with the same power but less aura consumption? Absolutely bonkers overpowered stuff.
A high speed, low aura usage water gun has the same energy as a low speed, high aura usage one, mathematically at least - in terms of Joules. It's here where the magic lies, I can fire off several high speed ones with the same aura it takes me to fire a single regular one. It's because of this that I say my reserves have increased 'in practice'.
And then you add the fact that the high speed ones are more damaging because of piercing power. They're also harder to miss since they don't arc as much and there's less of a time frame for my opponent to react and dodge them.
I could fire a high speed, high aura water gun. Of course! Isn't that just the natural progression of things? The logical way to do more damage. And that is true… except… I've run into a really unexpected problem.
Recoil.
Recoil is a bit of an issue…
I weigh thirteen pounds, give or take a third of a pound. Not much. So little in fact, that Brendan has no problem holding me in his arms for multiple hours on end without tiring himself. Normally this weight isn't troublesome, other than it being a bit annoying when everyone, pokemon or human, tries to carry me. Lola is the worst offender out of all of them...
All in all, that's as far as weight inconveniences me in simple everyday life.
However in combat, when firing a water gun, especially ones as powerful as mine, the recoil is enough to send me flying. Literally flying! I don't mean it in a joking kind of way either, firing a full power water gun directly downwards is enough for me to go up two or three meters into the air.
Because of this problem I've categorized water gun strength purely depending on the recoil I receive when firing them. Weak ones being ones that aren't enough to displace me from my position when using them. Although I call them 'weak' they still pack quite the punch and are the ones which I use most. Medium strength are ones where I need to take a stable position to fire, as to not let myself slip. High strength water guns are those which I can only shoot upwards without actually blasting off in the opposite direction.
And of course there is the 'Training empowered' full strength water gun, one done directly after a Xianxia training exercise. A type which I've fired a mere single time because of simple curiosity…
"..."
Nobody could quite understand how exactly I managed to get on the roof of the main school building. Well, nobody other than myself and a few Flying types which made sure to keep a lot of distance from me...
A smile forms on my face as I try not to laugh at what I imagine Brendan's experience of the event would have been.
Normally Immediately after the school bell rings I run up to Brendan's classroom to greet him, considering that there aren't any other 'non-pokemon involved' classes like Math following.
He would have been weirded out at first since it's the first time I've been late to greet him, probably thinking that I've been slowed down by something. Nothing serious. Dread slowly building as the time between classes slowly ticks away. Finally, when the class starts he tells the teacher about it, but said teacher doesn't immediately believe him as it's one of the main excuses used to delay class…
That's probably what happened too, one out of every three classes is delayed with that very excuse. The kids just tell their pokemon to go wander around somewhere close by, that way they can shave off a solid five or six minutes off the class.
Oliver, the teacher in question, has started to use some clever tactics of his own. Making his Arbok sweep the school campus for any pokemon that just so happen to be 'lost'. Such a funny situation honestly. The whole thing turned into a game of hide and seek in the end. An impossible game of hide and seek since snakes happen to have a thing called infrared sense and a tongue which can quite literally taste the air.
Anyways, I wonder how Brendan felt when I called to him from the roof of the building he just left. Just hearing a faint 'mudkip' coming from above him. Oliver certainly had a stunned enough expression when he saw me.
I got a really nice ride on the back of the Arbok. She's incredibly good at climbing, I've learned. Being nearly five meters long sure makes it a trivial task.
Probably could have just jumped down from the roof onto the ground no problem, I know that cats from back home can survive terminal velocity no problem. I think the terminal velocity for cats is like sixty miles per hour? Somewhere close to that. And I am a pokemon, many times tougher than your average cat.
My fear of heights hasn't disappeared with my reincarnation though. Hell no I ain't jumping from a five story building even if I'll survive…in theory.
"..."
What a shame, that something as unexpected as recoil is the thing that limits the power of my water guns. I actually had a brilliant inspiration a couple of weeks back, to turn the negative into a positive, using recoil to my advantage.
The root of the inspiration lies in a funny mod for Counter Strike 1.6… of all things.
The mod was simple - it gives guns a massive recoil, enough to send you zooming through the air with just a couple of shots from the pistol. A difference that completely changes the way you play the game, making it many times more fun. Sadly it never took off like the Surf or Zombie Escape modes but it was still a blast to play. One of the homies even made a custom map specifically for that mode.
Cutting through the air at mach five while desperately trying to hit your enemies, and failing, was way more entertaining than it should have been. Walking - What's that? You can enter the stratosphere with an AWP or a pump action shotgun, just beware the fall damage.
As I had been reminiscing about those old memories I thought to myself - Heeeey, can't I just… do that?
And so recoil kiting was born. Shoot at your enemies while at the same time gaining distance on them, the perfect style of combat.
Turns out the whole thing is as far from an original idea as it could be. The very next day I got a massive slap on the face.
Pokemon battles are an immensely popular thing, obviously. So it is no surprise that me and Brendan ended up being on the TV watching a live tournament. The battle that gave me the reality check had a Blastoise fighting against a Pidgeot.
I was… Shocked. Utterly Flabbergasted actually, when I saw the Blastoise in question retract all his limbs and his head, leaving only his two cannons out, using those same two cannons to shoot a blast of water so powerful it made him lift off like an actual rocket.
Following his unexpected departure from the ground he chased after the Pidgeot, ricocheting off the ground and walls like a ping pong ball to get to him. Ultimately the Blastoise got to the bird and knocked it out in one hit with his sheer bulk, the Pidgeot not even being able to land a single hit in. Jesus Crist.
Apparently combat centered on the recoil is considered 'The Meta' when it comes to that specific pokemon.
Yeah, I don't know how I thought that recoil kiting is something original, no way for me to have been the first to suffer from the negative effects of recoil, nor would I have been the first with the thought of turning it to my advantage.
Suddenly my rock shattering water gun doesn't seem as impressive.
My classmates would probably want to strangle me if they could read my thoughts.
As far as recoil kiting goes I haven't done anything… crazy. I've developed a single move to use in combat. I jump up, shoot a water gun with strength somewhere in between 'medium' and 'high', get launched back about one or two meters, and land safely. Extremely difficult to execute since I need to do multiple things at once, balance and orient myself, charge the water gun, jump all the while bracing myself for Newton's Third Law of Motion to happen - being ready to maneuver and twist my body in midair in the split second after the recoil hits me. Doing one or two of those things is simple, but the whole package? Unreasonably hard. I'm getting better at it though, gotten in the flow and all that. These things are all about repetition and muscle memory.
"..."
How odd though, the power of my water gun has advanced to a point where I can fight pokemon which I have a double type disadvantage to without any physical moves. That, coupled with the fact that I haven't evolved yet has been a bit perplexing to say the least. You'd have thought that I'm strong enough to do so by now.
The anime and games had given me the impression that a pokemon evolves when it reaches a certain threshold of strength. Evolutions that require special conditions aside, like the elemental stone ones.
There are a couple of different reasons I speculate to be the cause.
First one being - I'm way too young. A plausible explanation, you could have the strongest baby Mudkip in the world, one which no other pokemon of the same age can stand against, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a baby pokemon, you wouldn't expect it to evolve.
Being nearly undefeated in my class has probably inflated my ego a tad bit too much.
Another reason could be that I've focused way too much on developing my 'magical' capabilities, neglecting my physical training in the process. I've fallen a fair bit behind my peers when it comes to strength. I'm also called 'The Mudfish Pokemon' am I not? Perhaps for my species evolution is locked behind comprehending how to use the 'Ground' element as Marshtomp is both a water and a ground type.
Of course there's the 'All of the above' option as well, where every single one of those reasons could be why I haven't evolved yet.
Yeaah… The Dopamine overload I experience every time I use a water gun against opponents has really gotten to my head. Oh well, Brendan's been wanting to start a strength training regimen beginning next week anyways. I'm not the only one who noticed the power of my water guns beginning to plateau.
Brendan's been a massive help when it comes to my training. After he saw how powerful my water guns were he's done everything he can to help me. Every single day without fail he's been bringing me to an isolated part of the Rustboro Beach, where I spend about one or two hours training. Cooking me food high in Calcium, the recipes he uses made by his mother of course. Cheese produced from Miltank milk is delicious.
Heh, funny how calcium actually helps in the development of my 'special' capabilities. One of the things the games got right and another reason why I can't ignore anything said or mentioned in them.
Overall, without Brendan's work it would have taken me months more to get to the point where I am now. Somewhere close to half a year, probably more.
Rising on my feet I dust myself off and make my way away from the pond. I decide to go where my two friends from class normally chill out.
The large open spaces which have barely anyone in sight give me the same feeling I received when playing Fallout. The emotion is further enhanced as I remember my first day here and how bustling with activity everything was. The whole place is just barren, almost pure emptiness lit up by a blazing hot sun. I think that today's temperature is somewhere close to one hundred and ten Fahrenheit, too hot for even a regular Battle Class, unless you want to risk someone getting a heatstroke.
I can still see some pokemon here and there, a flock of Taillow not belonging to the school is perched in the shade of a nearby building. Grass and Bug types like Oddish and Wurmple are hanging around as well. The only ones that can be seen playing right now are a Magby and three Growlithe, going by the way they're moving I presume that they're playing tag. Figures that the only active ones in this heat are the fire types.
Actually if my eyes aren't deceiving me that's Enrique and his Swinub over there sweeping for mushrooms again. The memory of him and Surge causes me to chuckle a bit.
According to Brendan all the Pokemon which weren't picked by a kid were sent somewhere else to be adopted or sold, either that or to be released into the wild.
Wonder how that works. Back in my old world you couldn't just release a 'tamed' animal that had lived its entire life amongst humans and expect it to survive out in the wild. These are Pokemon and not animals though, I'm sure that if it's an option they have confidence in it working.
Entering the small man-made forest on the school's property I feel the urge to scratch my head in confusion as the usual spot where my friends are is completely empty, an odd sight considering that I don't remember ever finding them in a different location during the 'boring' classes.
*Thud* *Thud* *Thud *Thud* ...
Hearing a series of quick but heavy footsteps rapidly approaching It takes me a split second to realize what's going on.
Hastily turning around I see the form of a Shroomish sprinting towards me, this little bastard doesn't have an ounce of shame in him.
Hurriedly I fire a weak water gun at his centerpoint. He almost sidesteps it but because of the projectile's speed I still manage to clip him on the side. Not that it matters much, the water gun ricochets off the incredibly durable skin intrinsic to the pokemon, barely disrupting his sprint.
Seeing the ineffectiveness of my attack I gather enough aura to use a medium strength one. As he approaches further, attempting to ram me, I shoot it at point blank range.
This one manages to stop his charge. In an attempt to negate the water guns effects he quickly slammed his body into the soil, making a small pit, grounding himself. It proved effective as the water gun didn't send him flying backwards, but instead bounced off his dome shaped head and upwards into the air.
Perfect.
Although I barely damaged him, I still manage to buy enough time to gather the aura required for a strong water gun. Making a large jump away from the mushroom pokemon I immediately begin to charge up my attack.
The Shroomish in question is not oblivious to what I'm about to do, a big reason being because he's been on the receiving end of that very same attack many times before. I notice an expression perfectly depicting the words 'I messed up' forming on him, the cause of him spotting the mass of aquatic energy gathering in my open mouth.
"fuck… Help Me!" He barely has the time to run away from me before he gets blasted in the back by a max strength water gun, the hit having enough strength behind it to lift up the sorry pokemon off the ground and slam him into a tree.
I experience almost the same thing he does except because of my 'recoil training' I turn my body mid-air in such a way that I manage to land on my feet.
"Haaah? You thought that you could get the drop on me did you, you overgrown mushroom!" A sudden fit of rage overcoming me, I begin dashing full speed in his direction "Get over here! Your better is gonna teach you how to behave honorably! I'll have you know that I've had to deal with petty tricks like this coming from my siblings for nearly all my life!" I fire a couple of water guns in his direction, weak ones, more meant to instill a sense of dread in him and get him to start running than to actually do damage.
"Wait, Bel! I'm sorry I didn't mean it!" A reply comes from the dishonorable mushroom as he turns to flee.
"Sure you didn't. Hey! Stop running away and accept your punishment."
"Screw that! You'll never catch me alive, you phreak of nature!"
As much as I hate to admit it, he is faster than I am. His trainer has focused almost purely on physical exercises, so much so that he doesn't know how to use his Grass type moves yet. A complete opposite to what I've been doing.
"I'm going to shove your sorry head so far down into the ground!"
'No you won't.' is the last response I get from him, a cloud of dust following his path away from me. I follow after him at a more 'sedate' pace. Knowing that I won't be able to catch up to him I decide to try a more sneaky approach and get him when he's unaware.
- o - o -
"How did you even know that he's gonna pass through here when you set up this trap?" Lynn the Eevee asks me as he lightly dips his foot into the sticky mud I created in order to catch the annoying Mushroom, he gently wipes it off on a nearby patch of grass after testing its consistency.
"You think this is the only trap?" I reply "I set up a couple of them where I thought he's most likely to pass."
Turning his head to look straight ahead all he witnesses is a mound of even more mud with a pair of tiny green legs pointing straight into the sky sticking out of it. "I tried to dissuade him, you know." he comments with a wry smile, shaking his head.
"This is absolutely genius though, I never would have thought of using something like this in such a situation. The whole ordeal has really made me include Vaporeon into the list of considerations for evolution…" The wry smile gets just a tiny bit more pronounced as he continues talking.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I know that the whole evolution thing is a sore spot for Eevees."
"Don't mind it. You haven't done anything wrong. More importantly though!" He turns to face me, his entire form suddenly brimming with excitement. "Come here and see what I drew~. I want you to judge how good it is, it's my first drawing ever!" With that he gently pushes me with his head away from the mud mound and towards a nearby patch of exposed dirt.
That is…Interesting. His trainer is the girl in class who's known for her artistic talent. I guess it's expected of him to try and draw something himself, especially with how impressionable young Pokemon are towards their trainers… Lynn has spent no small amount of time talking about the different things his trainer has drawn - Landscapes, People, Pokemon, Battles… If my memory's not failing me she's also drawn a picture of him winning his first battle, according to him it's been hung on the wall right above her bed.
"So, what do you think? Is it any good?" He urges me to answer as we get close enough to the dirt patch for me to see what's been drawn on it.
"Huh… Wait, this is actually not bad at all."
*Floof*
I'm pushed off my feet by a wack from the Eevee's fluffy tail. "What do you mean 'not that bad'? Were you expecting my art to be bad?"
"Ye-yea? I remember the first time I tried to draw something, all I ended up with was just some random distorted scribbles barely resembling what I wanted to draw." Interestingly enough I remember the first time I really tried to draw something. I think I was four or five - I tried to draw some really cool Yu-Gi-Oh card. It didn't turn out too well.
Going by the look Lynn is giving me, he's a bit… disbelieving. His mouth is slightly agape. "Wooow, don't you think that's like - rude? Telling one of your best friends that you expect them not to do well at a task?"
"Not at all." I lift my head up slightly, kind of condescendingly. "It's because you're one of my best friends that I tell you outright what I think." I state that as a matter of fact. "Wouldn't it be much ruder if you drew something that actually looked terrible and I lied directly to your face that it looked good."
"..." Dead silence.
"What?"
"You're so weird dude, has anyone ever told you that? I also hate that you're making so much sense."
"Hah! I'm just the smartest boy, don't mind me. You can thank me later for teaching you a little something about friendship."
"Aha…" He rolls his eyes as a response. "So anyways, like what you see? I've spent more than an hour drawing this. It's simplistic, true, but I think it looks amazing."
Getting up on all fours I walk closer to the work of art, until I'm about two inches away from it. Yes, simplistic is actually a very good term for it now that I take a close look. I think that the name given to this specific type of art is 'nature morte', basically a picture depicting different types of objects.
Those objects could be anything really. A vase, a bouquet of flowers, bottles and furniture. Fruits are the most popular with this type of art I think, Lynn's work is definitely not an outlier as I see a couple of Orans carefully positioned into a bowl, the berries nothing more than a simple ellipse with the stalk sticking out. All of the objects in his work are nothing more than their outline, the bare minimum required for you to recognize what they are - A small coffee table with a bowl of Orans and a bottle, the bottle filled with some beverage I don't recognize. Going by the interesting non-standard shape I presume it's from some kind of soda company. Sad that I have no idea what it is, Brendan's mom has banned any and all sodas - probably for the best.
I can see that Lynn has spent a lot of time training how to draw lines as not even a single one of them is warped or twisted, considering he drew all of this on dirt. It's really damn impressive.
"Honestly Lynn, looking at this, I think it would be best for you if you evolved into an Espeon or a Sylveon." I state.
"Huh? Espeon or Sylveon? How does that have anything to do with this?"
"Well, aren't they the only two evolutions which can hold a pencil properly? Sylveon has those ribbon things on it that can be used like hands, I think? And Espeon can just use its mind to hold things in place." I explain my thought process.
"..."
"..."
I really hope he didn't get offended that I recommended the two 'girlish' evolutions. Actually… nevermind. Pokemon don't seem to notice the uncanniness that comes from the disconnect between physical form and gender, I don't think he'd even understand what 'girlish evolution' even means.
Unlike him I dread the day I bear witness to a female Machoke.
"Aaaaaah!" *Thud*
A cry of frustration comes from him as he makes himself audibly flop, belly facing the skies and back against the ground. I send him a weird look.
"You alright buddy?"
"Not at all, there are so many different choices it's actually impossible to make a decision on what evolution to pick. And what you said." He points to me. "Is a very good reason why I should consider the two evolutions I had them ruled out. I may have ruled them out simply because I had no idea how they worked and what they did, but it still gave me some peace of mind. This is just the worst."
"Meh, stop complaining. You have about five more years to decide what you wanna evolve into."
Both me and Lynn turn our heads in the direction of the mud pile. Looks like the dishonorable mushroom has managed to dig himself out. He's making his way to us as he attempts to clean off some of the mud sticking to him.
"That's easy for you to say Mog, unlike you however I'll really fall out in strength the more the time passes, give it one or two years and most would already be evolved into their second forms. I don't plan on being a complete pushover."
"Don't mind it, we'll destroy anyone who even thinks of bullying you, right Bel?" He sends me an asking look at me as he sits himself next to us, well as much as a Shroomish can sit, he has just tucked his legs in a little bit.
"Sure."
"And well, if we can't deal with it I'll have no problem calling mom or dad to come to the rescue." Mog flashes us a grin as he finishes his sentence.
"Pffft. Do you want the army to come here in Rustboro you maniac?!" If I had any kind of liquid in my mouth I most definitely would have sprayed it over him in shock…Oh wait.
"Yeaa, that's all the more reason for me to think real hard about what I want to evolve into."
"Oh come on! My parents are really nice, I promise. They wouldn't dare to harm anyone!"
"And how exactly is anyone supposed to know that? I really doubt that the person in charge of the city would have braved the forests to go and meet them."
"Blergh" Mog sticks his tongue in my direction "It's a joke guys, have a laugh."
Lynn is most skeptical "Is it? I'm kind of doubtful."
Mog turns to stick his tongue in Lynn's direction as well.
*ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring*
"Perfect!" The Eevee stands up immediately as he hears the school bell ring. "Can you guys remain here to make sure nobody ruins what I drew? I really want to show Anya what I've done."
"Of course."
"Yea!"
"Thanks!" With that he leaves to go and get his trainer.
"..."
"We probably should have asked him to go and grab our trainers as well, Danny's gonna be worried sick again."
"Eh, he'll live. Don't worry about it Bel."